


Remember Me

by Akiko_Natsuko



Series: Gratsu [55]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Established Relationship, Friendship/Love, Loss, M/M, Magic, Memories, Memory Alteration, Missing Persons, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 13:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19746499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akiko_Natsuko/pseuds/Akiko_Natsuko
Summary: It was like an itch between Gray's shoulders, one that he couldn’t reach, and that even if he could, he wouldn’t have been able to scratch. It was the kind of awareness that in a battle would have had him dashing for cover, but this wasn’t a fight, and there was no danger here in the safety of his own flat. So, why did he feel so ill at ease? And why was there an ache in his chest, not a physical pain, but the kind of empty, gnawing sensation that came from losing something or someone special?





	Remember Me

There was something missing.

Gray faltered for a moment as he stared at the table in his hallway. It was the same table that had always been there, a piece of junk that he had salvaged off the street when he had first been moving into his flat, and yet it wasn’t. It looked the same as always, the oak smoothed and varnished from his efforts to spruce it up, and the top littered with a random assortment of items that he had thrown on it as he came and went. Apart from at the back. He blinked. There was a perfect gap in the mess, as though something had been sat there at some point but try as he might he couldn’t seem to remember what it was. He scowled at the space, straining to remember what could have sat there, but his mind was drawing a complete and utter blank, as though he’d just crashed into a brick wall. It might not have worried him too much, were it not for the fact that this had been happening more and more often the last few days.

It was like an itch between his shoulders, one that he couldn’t reach, and that even if he could, he wouldn’t have been able to scratch. It was the kind of awareness that in a battle would have had him dashing for cover, but this wasn’t a fight, and there was no danger here in the safety of his own flat. So, why did he feel so ill at ease? And why was there an ache in his chest, not a physical pain, but the kind of empty, gnawing sensation that came from losing something or someone special? Irritated, he pushed some of the mess over to cover the gap, and turned away, heading for the door with his hands clenched at his sides.

_“Gray, your shirt…”_

The voice echoed behind him, and he whirled, ice forming around his hands only to come up short as he found himself staring down an empty hallway. _What the hell?_ It had sounded so real, and while he hadn’t recognised the voice, it had reignited the itch, something screaming at him that he should have recognised it. A feeling that only grew as he glanced down at himself and realised that he had, in fact, lost his shirt again.

“Who are you?” He demanded.

Silence greeted him, and he didn’t know why, but even that felt wrong. He lived alone, so there wasn’t meant to be anyone else in the flat, and he was used to the quiet, after all, he had never been as noisy as….

As noisy as…

His brain was drawing a blank again, the name, the face that he wanted just not coming to him, and the itch became a curl of dread in the pit of his stomach. Something was missing. It wasn’t just a suspicion now, it was a realisation, and it left him feeling sick and dizzy. What could he have forgotten? And how had he forgotten it? He hadn’t been on a job in days, none of them had, not since their last one had… he blinked again, and for a moment his vision wavered, and he felt flames dance across his skin, flinching back hard. Yet when the world settled once more, the hallway was empty as ever, and when he glanced down, there was no sign that flames had touched him. _What is going on?_

The feeling of wrongness lingered, and he staggered slightly as made a beeline for his shirt which he now realised was sprawled over the table, realising that he needed to see the others and see if they were experiencing this too. His hand had just closed on the shirt when his vision wavered again, and he felt the brush of warm fingers against his wrist.

_“...here.” He blinked, before sighing as he reached out to take the proffered shirt, unsurprised when warm fingers shifted to grasp his wrist instead. “Why do you always strip while we’re leaving? Anyone would think you want to walk around naked, Ice Princess.”_

This time when his vision cleared, the warmth fading from his wrist, he was stunned to realise that his cheeks were damp. Tears rolling down his cheeks. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t remember who had been speaking, who would have touched or teased him like. Or why that silly nickname had his heart twisting in his chest, as though it was something precious that had been lost. It was too much, and he lashed out, sending the table and the junk covering it crashing to the ground with a noise that was halfway between a sob and a snarl, leaning towards the former, as the voice rang out again, no longer teasing, but angry and desperate.

_“I would never have forgotten you; I don’t care if it was Lost Magic, or what you wanted. I would never have forgotten…”_

“Stop it,” Gray whispered, eyes wild as he stumbled back away from the table. “Stop it! STOP IT!” The shirt falling forgotten from trembling hand as he turned and all but bolted from the flat, white noise flooding his ears.

_Who have I forgotten…?_

****

The guild was quiet when he arrived, and the second he stepped across the threshold, his earlier emotions trapped behind a scowl, he faltered as a feeling of wrongness washed over him. It’s always been like this, he tried to tell himself as he glanced around, and it had, his memories confirming that, and yet he knew that he was wrong.

_“Oi, droopy eyes! Fight Me!” Noise and flame greeted him seconds after he’d entered the hall, and he grumbled under his breath, even as whirled to face the speaker, hands already moving together in readiness for the fight._

It was the same voice, the one he didn’t recognise, the one that belonged to someone he couldn’t see, and he glanced around half expecting to find someone leaping at him. Strangely disappointed when he realised that beyond the usual waves, and greetings, his entrance had been nothing out of the ordinary. Was this all in his mind? He didn’t think so, and yet there was nothing wrong in the guild… Nab was still stood pouring over the request board even though they knew it meant nothing, Mira and Cana were chatting at the bar, the latter clutching a barrel to her chest. Macao was showing Romeo a new trick with his flame, while Wakaba looked on from the middle of a cloud of smoke. He could just make out Laxus’ head in one of the far booths, with Freed next to him, as they worked on what looked like another pile of complaints from the newly reformed Council. While his own teammates were already sat at their usual table, chatting and laughing amongst themselves, Happy gesturing wildly with a fish, until Carla said something that had him deflating like a balloon. 

That distracted him for a moment, watching as the blue Exceed slumped dejectedly onto the bench next to Lucy. It wasn’t that it was a rare sight because although Carla had mellowed towards him, she wasn’t making it easy for him. No, it was the fact that the cat looked strangely lonely even in the middle of the group. And why was he with them? Had Gray ever wondered why the stray Exceed had joined their team? He frowned. Vision beginning to flicker again, as he realised that while he had memories of Happy, they were strangely blurry at the moment, as though they had been poorly stitched together to cover something else.

_“This is a dragon egg! I’m gonna hatch it!”_

_“…His name will be Happy! HAPPY THE DRAGON!”_

“HAPPY!” He hadn’t meant to shout, but it had burst out of him as he found himself rushing forwards. They all looked at him as he approached, and he wondered what he must look like, half-naked and desperate, but he didn’t care, the wrongness pulling at him stronger than ever as he reached the table, noticing the scorch mark in the middle of the wood. Had it always there? It looked like someone had placed a burning hand down on it, and yet he couldn’t remember either Macao or Romeo doing that, and why would they do it their table?

“Gray?” Erza asked with a worried frown.

“We’ve forgotten something.” Cold certainty filled him with those words, as he glanced around the Guildhall. Too quiet. Too cold. As though all the warmth had been sucked out of the room, and he found himself shivering suddenly.

_“Will you go away? It’s too hot to have you around in this weather,” Gray grumbled, as the warm body pressed against his back, arms looped around his neck. There was a pause, and then a sigh, the sound tugging at his heart even as he refused to soften, and then the warmth was gone. Footsteps trudging away from him, and he lasted all of a moment before he was twisting around in his seat…_

“Gray? Gray?!” He blinked, coming back to the present to find Erza on her feet beside him, one hand resting on his forehead as though checking for a fever.

“I’m not ill.” _I’m not mad,_ he thought but didn’t say, not wanting to put the idea in her head, especially as he realised that they were all staring at him now, aware of the silence that was spreading around the guild behind him. “Can’t you all feel it? That something’s missing?” He couldn’t quite keep the desperation out of his voice now, not sure what he was going to do if they said that he was the only one.

“I’ve felt it too.” It was Lucy who broke the silence that stretched out further in the wake of his question. “Just for the last few days. But I don’t know what it is, and whenever I try to put my finger on it, it just seems to slip away.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Erza demanded.

“I thought maybe I was imagining it,” Lucy admitted sheepishly, and Gray felt a rush of gratitude to her at that moment, relieved that he wasn’t the only one feeling that way. “After all we’re all here, and there’s no danger or anything at the moment. Everything is as normal as it gets for us, and yet…”

_“What? I’ve got my friends this close by… but we’re all right here, together. We’ve got our friends close by! Now, there’s nothing to fear, because we’re not alone!”_

“It’s not,” Gray finished for her, blinking as the voice rang through his mind again. The words striking a chord inside him, a gut punch in that instance, because how could he forget someone who spoke like that. Who sounded so warm and familiar, that Gray wanted to believe them, and he shook his head, focusing on the others in the hope of keeping himself grounded. “I keep getting flashes of memory, and hearing a voice, but I can’t put a face to who I’m seeing, or a name.”

“And Happy?” Wendy asked. “You shouted for him.”

“My memories of him seem…distorted somehow, as though they’ve been patched together to keep him in them and remove whoever is missing.” That shifted everyone’s attention to the little Exceed who shifted uneasily under the sudden focus, twisting his tail between his paws, refusing to meet their eyes.

“I tried to tell you…” He said in a small voice. “I t-tired, but every time I cam close the words seemed to get stuck.” He was shaking now, trembling so hard that Gray half expected him to topple off the bench, and Lucy must’ve felt the same because she reached across to wrap an arm around him to stop him from falling. However, at her touch he seemed to come alive, lifting his head to look at them with wide, tearful eyes, that were like a gut punch all of their own, even before he swallowed and added brokenly. “I d-didn’t want h-him to be f-f-f-orgotten…”

_“I would never have forgotten…”_

“I-I…” Happy wasn’t done, but the words were catching, and he was rigid now, eyes huge as he shook beneath the force of it. Whatever was silencing clearly still having a firm hold on him, and as blood began to trickle from his nose, Lucy grabbed him tight.

“Happy, don’t force yourself!”

“DON’T FORGET…” Happy was choking now, shuddering and shaking under the force of it, eyes locked on Gray who was trapped in place, horror and terror warring for control. What had they done? What had they forgotten? Happy made a series of awful, terrifying noises, refusing to listen to Lucy and Wendy who were both begging him to stop, promising him that they would find some other way to work out. “D-Don’t...TSU….” His eyes rolled up as he forced the last bit out, and he collapsed limply in Lucy’s grasp, leading to a flurry of activity as they shifted to let Wendy reach him, her hands already glowing brightly as she lay her hands on his body.

Gray was blind to this though. _Tsu…Tsu?_ He was reeling, trying to make sense of what Happy had tried so hard to tell them, vision wavering once more, only this time he could see it, pink hair and the scaled scarf that fluttered in the breeze.

_“What is your name?”_

_“…N-Natsu.”_

  


**Author's Note:**

> (Oneshot for now - but I will likely be continuing this later in the summer)


End file.
